Flu pandemic could trigger second Great Depression, brokerage warns clients

HELEN BRANSWELL

TORONTO (CP) - A major Canadian brokerage firm has added its voice to those warning of the potential global impact of an influenza pandemic, suggesting it could trigger a crisis similar to that of the Great Depression.

Real estate values would be slashed, bankruptcies would soar and the insurance industry would be decimated, a newly released investor guide on avian influenza warns clients of BMO Nesbitt Burns.

"It's quite analogous to the Great Depression in many ways, although obviously caused by very different reasons," co-author Sherry Cooper, chief economist of the firm and executive vice-president of the BMO Financial Group, said in an interview Tuesday.

"We won't have 30-per-cent unemployment because frankly, many people will die. And there will be excess demand for labour and yet, at the same time, it will absolutely crunch the economy worldwide."

A leading voice for pandemic preparedness said the report is evidence the financial and business sectors - which have been slow to twig to the implications of a flu pandemic - are finally realizing why public health and infectious disease experts have been sounding the alarm.

"I think that this particular report really signifies the first time that anyone from within the financial world, when looking at this issue, kind of had one of those 'Oh my God' moments," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

"The financial world is finally waking up to the fact that this could be the boulder in the gear of the global economy," he said, suggesting a pandemic could trigger an implosion of international trade unlike anything seen in modern history.

"All the other catastrophes we've had in the world in recent years at the very most put screen doors on our borders. This would seal shut a six-inch steel door," Osterholm said.

Cooper, a highly influential figure in the Canadian financial sector, wrote the report with Donald Coxe, a global portfolio strategist for BMO Financial Group.

They warn investors the economic fallout out of a pandemic would inflict pain across sectors and around the globe.

Airlines would be grounded, transport of goods would cease, the tourism and hospitality sectors would evaporate and the impact on exports would be devastating, Cooper wrote.

"This would trigger foreclosures and bankruptcies, credit restrictions and financial panic," she warned, suggesting investors reduce debt and risk in their portfolios to be on the safe side.

The World Health Organization and public health leaders have been warning for some time that the world may be on the verge of a pandemic, the first since 1968. Adding considerably to their concern is the fact that the strain they fear will trigger a pandemic, the H5N1 avian flu ravaging poultry flocks of Southeast Asia, is highly virulent.

Even if a pandemic were mild, it is estimated that about a third of the world's population would fall sick over a period of months and millions would die. If the strain is virulent, the toll could mount to scores of millions of deaths, over a period of only 18 to 24 months.

Cooper reminded investors of the economic devastation SARS wreaked on affected cities or countries, including Toronto. But even with that fresh experience to draw from, she admitted it was hard to envisage how widespread the implications of a flu pandemic might be.

"It is a big, big issue. I mean, it's almost imponderable," she said. "I have to admit: the more research I did, the more frightened I became."

Still, she urged investors to embrace prudence, not succumb to panic.

"We wouldn't want everyone to go running out and dump all their investments and bury cash in their mattresses, because it would only accelerate the crisis - at least the financial crisis. But I don't believe people would do that anyway," Cooper said.

BS. The 3rd World would need to be isolated, but they don't form a big part of the world economy anyway. The rest of us would take some precautions and be fine. Telecommuting and videoconferencing will boom. Buy telecomm and computer stocks.

As for SARS, nearly all the economic losses were caused by panic reactions, not by actual deaths and illness and their impact on the economy. That should be a lesson to everyone, not to exaggerate disease threats, and overreact to a handful of cases.

Not to sound despotic or anything but perhaps a good genetic cleansing will do our country some good. I hate those labels on the plastic bags that warn about asphyxiation and on beach balls that remind us to use under responsible supervision and how about that "Coffee may be hot"... I could go on...

more people would die from the panic than the disease....if you coughed in a crowd..the crowd would stone you to death...no more hand shakes for me...and the Europeans would be the first to go..the ones that kiss each cheek....there outta here

"The World Health Organization and public health leaders have been warning for some time that the world may be on the verge of a pandemic, the first since 1968. Adding considerably to their concern is the fact that the strain they fear will trigger a pandemic, the H5N1 avian flu ravaging poultry flocks of Southeast Asia, is highly virulent."

Yes, I look back in abject horror at the cataclysmic pandemic of 1968. And, isn't virulence a virtual requirement for pandemics?

Good point. There are reasons my grandparents were not neurotic. When they were kids, 1/3 of their peers were destined to die before the age of 17. Having run that particular guantlet, there were NO WORRIES! :-)

20
posted on 08/18/2005 1:43:54 PM PDT
by GOP_1900AD
(Stomping on "PC," destroying the Left, and smoking out faux "conservatives" - Take Back The GOP!)

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